Baku, Azerbaijan, Apr. 6
By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend:
Floating drilling rig Istiglal, which is currently used for work at the gas condensate field Shah Deniz in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, will continue to fucntion on this field after the scheduled maintenance, a source on the oil and gas market of Azerbaijan told Trend.
The source said that floating drilling rigs can change their location after repair.
"However, given the importance of the work carried out at the Shah Deniz within the advance boring on the second stage of its development, the Istiglal rig will be returned to the field," said the source.
It was earlier reported that the planned repair of the Istiglal rig would start in May and last nearly nine months. It is planned to complete the repair work by late January 2016. Currently, the floating drilling rig named after Heydar Aliyev also operates at the Shah Deniz field.
Caspian Drilling Company (92.44-percent share is owned by SOCAR) is the operator of Istiglal floating drilling rig.
As part of the implementation of the Shah Deniz projects, the annual gas production volume will increase from 9 billion cubic meters (within the first phase) by additional 16 billion cubic meters in the second phase. Two offshore platforms will be installed and over 20 subsea wells will be drilled to produce additional volumes of gas within Shah Deniz-2 project.
As part of the second stage of the field's development, gas will be exported to Turkey and European markets by expanding the South Caucasus gas pipeline and the construction of Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) and Trans-Adriatic (TAP) gas pipelines.
The contract for development of the Shah Deniz offshore field was signed on June 4, 1996. The field's reserve is estimated at 1.2 trillion cubic meters of gas.
The shareholders are: BP, operator (28.8 percent), AzSD (10 percent), SGC Upstream (6.7 percent), Statoil (15.5 percent), Lukoil (10 percent), NICO (10 percent) and TPAO (19 percent).
The volume of gas produced at Shah Deniz field stood at 9.9 billion cubic meters in 2014, while the volume of condensate production at this field totaled 2.3 million metric tons (18.7 million barrels), compared to 9.8 billion cubic meters of gas and 2.48 million metric tons of condensate (19.6 million barrels) in 2013.
---
Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov